


hearts to the stars

by Kirta



Series: my dreams are not unlike yours [8]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: ...you'll have to forgive the wildly inconsistent formatting for these tho, Gen, but that seems unnecessary, i guess i could tag 'rohirrim ocs' and 'elf ocs' and everyone else, they're all oc prompt fills lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27073213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirta/pseuds/Kirta
Summary: a number of my fills for oc-tober were for my assorted lotro characters. here they are!
Series: my dreams are not unlike yours [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562503
Comments: 23
Kudos: 4





	1. oct 3- youth

**Author's Note:**

> [title note i probably should have added earlier- borrowed from 'trials' by starset]
> 
> @oc-growth-and-development on tumblr hosted an oc-tober that i participated in. those that fall into this particular 'verse i'm putting up here for those so interested. have fun~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's for esterín's father, aelinil

we are not the type to move mountains.

we were both young by our own accounting when we met, in the autumn afternoon on the shores of the lake. we were less so when we were wed, but even she was not yet old.

ours is not the kind of love that changes the world or challenges the great powers. we are no beren and lúthien, and were i faced with that great choice i would not choose as she did. we both know this and we are content with it. we are small and our light is not blinding, but we are happy.

we have a daughter and we name her _remembrance of hope,_ and we know (or we think we know) what our choices will mean for her.

we will not move mountains, we will not be remembered through the ages, and we will not regret it.


	2. oct 6- luxury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's for sileär seasheen and omaruin, high elves who haven't gotten much of my time yet. working on it. eventually

"And what is the long-suffering sigh for, oh captain mine?" she asks.

"I am tired.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Yes, and no.”

“And how does that work, precisely?” She's smiling.

"The greater part of the Alliance is well ready for the next fight, it is true,” he admits. “But this war has been long already, and now we are preparing for a siege.”

“It does feel far longer than it has truly been. This place does none of us any kindness.”

“And it will be longer yet.” He sighs. “Do you ever think about walking away from this?”

“Yes.” She laughs. “Don’t look at me like that- you’ll not catch me deserting so easily. I do think about it, and I would be shocked to hear that any of us here did not. We have not yet left, though, and it will take something far more impressive than a siege to make me leave.”

“I believe it.”

“...I do dream about it, and more often than I would like. We are far from here and we are singing without caution or watch, dancing in the starlight. There is food and drink prepared just for the enjoyment of it, and everything is as we want it, not as we need it. But even in dreams, sometimes we wear armor, carry blades. I doubt anyone here will forget how to live at war.”

“If we survive this at all.”

“Well. There is that.”


	3. oct 10- silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isena & isedd! isena has, of course, made an art of bothering her brother by now

Isena shifts in her blankets. Probably rolling over to face him again. Isedd keeps his eyes firmly shut.

Poke.

Poke.

He stays curled up and facing the other direction, breathing deep. 

Poke.

He can out-stubborn her. He throws in a snore. Isena scoffs and pokes him again.

Pokepoke.

Poooke, digging into his shoulder. Isedd curls deeper into his own blankets.

A shuffle. She climbs out of her blankets and inches closer to him. He braces too late and she goes for the ticklish spot just under his ribs. Isedd most certainly does not shriek, but he does sit bolt upright and swing his pillow straight at her smug face.

She catches it, because of course she does, and Isedd glares. Isena looks far too pleased with herself and opens her mouth to speak. Isedd snatches her pillow and this time nails her with it. Her grin widens, but Isedd’s does not match it. He rearranges his blankets and lays back down.

Isena sighs and makes no further attacks. There’s more shuffling, and something warm and solid presses against Isedd’s back. He relaxes. A little. At least until Isena yanks her pillow out from under his head and shoves his own ungently back into place.


	4. oct 14- cornered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for esterín!

some choices you make in a moment- because you must, because they are obvious, because you are out of time. others are the fruit of a thousand smaller choices made again and again until the bigger one is just one more step down the same path. 

this one, you think, should be of the first kind, sharp and decisive and final. you are, perhaps, wrong.

most of the elven world knows of the evenstar’s choice, one part lúthien’s and one part her uncle’s. for love she will remain and long will their story live, as beren and lúthien before them.

for love, too, you might remain, if in a different way. your mother and father had not had a love for the ages- you do not think yours is the kind to live overlong in memory either. quiet, but warm and no less true.

a year, or near enough one at any rate, is all it took for you to grow this close to them. the speed of it might frighten you if you stop to think about it, but even then there is a certain kind of settling in caring so much. there is, too, an understanding born of shared experience that your family, much as they loved you, could never truly find with you after edhellion. you never chose to leave when they did and they never chose to stay, and here and now you choose in a thousand smaller ways to stay and to bind yourself to these people here- the company, your small fellowship on the river, so many now graven on your soul. to remain as you are and to leave when they are gone, that is perhaps expected. to remain here and, beyond that, to change, that is less so.

you think there will be a point of decision that you will come to, and you fear it, because you do not know what you will choose. (but perhaps you have chosen already, quietly. not like they sing about in great halls at all)


	5. oct 17- shelter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alse, who took in isena and isedd when they arrived in bree-land

they're out walking, as they like to do to settle their thoughts

it's a beautiful day- summer is nearly upon them and the grass smells of fresh rain from the morning. the woodland is quiet, and they revel in the peace. they love cath and pete dearly, but neither of them have ever much appreciated silence

their quiet solitude doesn’t last half as long as they wish. there is thrashing in the bushes nearby and before they can hide themself, two people- kids, really- stumble out of a thicket and collapse. they notice alse there quickly enough, and one leaps to her feet and puts herself between alse and the second kid, brandishing a stick as if it’s anything more deadly than a dry branch

they look young. the second kid stands much more slowly, brushing himself off as if it will make a difference. he has no more than three years on the girl, and she can’t possibly be more than fifteen. they’re filthy, covered in dirt, their clothes ripped in too many places, half-starved. despite the girl’s brave face, they’re both terrified. from the look of them, alse isn’t surprised

‘you two look like hell,’ they say. ‘my farm isn’t far from here, if you need somewhere to stay.’ a good meal and a bath would do them both miles of good. ‘i’m alse,’ they offer, when neither of the kids say a thing. they look at each other

‘we can’t…’ the boy mutters, gesturing vaguely behind them. ‘not forever’

‘yeah,’ the girl says. alse feels rather like they’re being left out of the conversation entirely. ‘i’m isena,’ the girl says. ‘this is isedd.’

‘a pleasure to meet you both. the farm’s this way.’ they start walking, hoping the kids will trust them long enough to at least get some rest. eventually, they hear two sets of footsteps following and smile


	6. oct 19- fruit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isena's new best friend is quickbeam's huorn!

She stares at the tree.

The tree stares back. (The tree does not have eyes, but she _knows_ it’s staring at her.)

She leaps for the ground, but before she can fall two feet she is arrested by sturdy wooden limbs. Isena groans. “Let me go.” The branches rustle and she is pulled back up to the basket-like net of branches. “This is not what I meant,” she grumbles. She scrambles back up and tries to climb down the trunk, but she isn’t nearly fast enough. Wood creaks and she is right back where she started. She can’t beat it, and she doubts she can outstubborn it either- not that she would ever admit that out loud.

She really needs to find someone else to talk to again.

“Listen,” she tries. “I know you promised Quickbeam you would look after me for a bit, but I’m fine now-” mostly “-and I really do need to be going.” The huorn offers her no response. “I do appreciate your help,” she says more softly, leaning back in the little nest. “Without it, I probably would have died in the snow, but I do need to go back. We were shorthanded enough before- every spear matters.” Even if hers has snapped in two. “Please, let me down.”

Silence. She dares to think the huorn has considered her words. She goes to stand, but her good ankle, it seems, has quietly been tangled up in a trap of smaller branches and twigs. She throws herself down with an aggrieved sigh. Maybe tomorrow, then. Surely the ent will be back by then. She at least has a better chance of persuading Quickbeam to release her than her over-zealous protector here.

It must be two hours later when she is woken from a nap by an assault from above. She tries to avoid them, but her ankle is still stuck fast.

“Wh…? Are these apples?” She is not quite sure she has actually woken up. There is no wind, but the branches around her creak and she thinks it might be laughter. 

The entire tree jolts and she tries to leap to her feet again, but the branches around her foot tighten almost imperceptibly and reluctantly sits back down. The tree jolts again, and again, and again, until she realizes it must be walking. She can only hope they are moving north. She pulls at her stuck leg, but the huorn has no intention of letting her go, it seems. She lays back and picks up an apple.

“Where are these from? You’re not even an apple tree.”


	7. oct 20- glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~est is cold and grumpy about it~

“...Esterín, what are you doing?”

She is wedged into the space between an old, wind-bent tree and a boulder, wrapped in two cloaks and shivering. She thinks this is fairly obvious. “Nothing.”

“Are you… whose cloak is that?”

Radanir’s. “It’s mine, now.”

“Are you alright?”

“Cold.”

He looks around. “Cold? I know spring is still young, but…” She knows she is colder than is reasonable, even with the mountain wind outside the hollow where they camp. The fact does not make her teeth chatter any less. “Come on, we almost have the fire ready.”

And lose what little heat she has managed to trap here in the process. She grumbles and draws her knees closer to her chest. Candaith sighs good-naturedly. “Or stay there. Suit yourself. I am sure Radanir will leave you alone too, when he returns.” He will probably pick her up and plant her by the fire until she warms up enough to give his cloak back… and enjoy it the entire time, too.

“Fine,” she groans, letting Candaith haul her to her feet. The fire is already glowing. It is not terribly warm yet, but it is well on its way there.

She does warm up, though. Eventually.


	8. oct 25- flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isedd counterpoint to isena's 'fruit' prompt

There are few enough flowers that have survived the violent, unseasonal frost that has seized the Isingmere and its surrounds. Many of those that did now decorate the graves outside Forlaw.

Not every marker stands over a body, but without one to hand Isedd refuses every offer of a memorial stone. It may prove a futile hope, but Thrymm’s stone was taken down just yesterday. It is not beyond possibility that his sister will return, too. He keeps the broken half of her spear close, like a talisman, and prepares with the other survivors for the final fight.

Isedd is alone but for Leitha the next morning, walking along the outer walls as he waits for the others. Smelly is still in the stable and Matwyn has not yet returned from her search. It’s snowing again, but there is still a clump of yellow flowers blooming in the shelter of a boulder shattered in the last attack on the city. Isedd nearly stops to pick it, but in the end he leaves it be and goes to wait at the gates.


	9. oct 26- costume

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sileär seasheen and omaruin, who are rapidly developing more story and being distracting...

Her armour is an age old by now, and it no longer settles on her shoulders. She had wanted a reprieve from the necessity of wearing it, but this is not at all how she meant. For all the healers’ skill here, she is but a shadow of the soldier she had been, and it will be no short road to regain even a part of her strength. Even the gauntlets are no better than pieces of an ill-fitting costume. She leaves the room that has been given to her and walks until she finds a patch of soft grass where she can watch the falls and let the noise of the water drown out everything else.

She still feels as if a fight is just around the corner. They told her she slept three thousand years, but the Alliance may as well have been yesterday to her. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply of the waterfall’s spray.

“And what is the long-suffering sigh for, oh dreamer mine?”

Sileär turns. “Omaruin!” She throws herself at him, arms wide. It surprises them both, she thinks, but Omaruin catches her easily and doesn’t set her down. She thought surely he would have taken ship by now, or that if he had not that he would be far from here. Perhaps she should have known better.

“They failed to mention that you were awake,” he says, so quietly she would not have heard it were they not pressed so tightly together. He pulls back just enough to look her over. “How do you feel?”

They sit in the grass together and talk for hours as the stars fade into dawn. Sileär knows with greater certainty the longer they talk that Omaruin is not the same. She should expect no less, not after all this time, but though she _looks_ by far the most different, she herself has hardly changed. This is not her weary captain, but he is still her dearest friend and very little could change that.

“You know, we were among the heroes of the age,” Omaruin says eventually. “You were certainly remembered as one, for a time.” 

Sileär sighs. “And there is the greatest strangeness: it was a different age. But that is the one I still live in, and it will take far longer than two weeks’ time before I can live fully in this one.” 

Omaruin says nothing to that. There is no easy answer to it and they both know it. 

“I heard some people even wrote songs about you.” 

She laughs. “Oh? Were any of them good?” 

“Oh, you would have hated almost all of them. Sometimes I wondered if they had a list of everything you disliked in a song.” 


	10. oct 18- treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rani sandyhill the burrahobbit lol. she, like sil and omaruin, is spontaneously growing more character

“My full name is Rani Rosemary Rainbow,” she tells Sileär in the library, sketching the dark roots crawling out of the strange stone on Bungo’s farm.

“Rainbow? That is an interesting family name.”

“Oh, there’s tons of Rainbows back home.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Rani says straight-faced. “The farms around Waymeet are full of them. You’ll have to visit someday. I’m sure the place has changed a ton since you were there last.”

\---

“I’m the third youngest of fifteen siblings,” she tells Isena and Isedd one night in the Pony, after they have returned from their adventures to the south.

“Fifteen?” Isena says doubtfully. Isedd is counting something on his fingers.

“We aren’t short on siblings ourselves,” Isedd says.

“Yeah, but _fifteen_?”

Rani nods solemnly. “Fifteen.” Isena half-opens her mouth, as if trying to find a way to phrase her question that isn’t unconscionably rude.

\---

“I know a song about this place,” she tells Elweleth and Hithion at the foot of Stoneheight. 

“You will have to sing it for us later, then,” Hithion says. “Sileär especially.”

Oops. If ever there was someone who could see she was making it up on the spot. Rani waves a hand. “Oh, I’m a terrible singer, and the song isn’t exactly for polite company.”

Hithion snorts. “Now I _know_ you’re lying. We have never been ‘polite company’.”

\---

“We do this every fall,” she tells Esterín, here to visit her Ranger friends. “If you’ve never seen it, you’re really missing out.”

“You wander around trying to collect baked goods before someone catches you and chases you off?”

“Well, I do at least.” Most of the festivities aren’t quite so high-stakes, but Rani does like a challenge.

\---

“Whatever happens on the island, traveling with you guys really has been a treat,” she tells Omaruin on the boat to Sâri-surma, knuckles white on the wooden bench. She wants to say something funny, or at the very least mildly amusing, but she can’t quite come up with anything. Omaruin smiles at her.

“Who could turn down a journey with Rani Rosemary Rainbow?”

Rani squints at him, but his serene smile does not waver.


	11. oct 31- reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> esterín, isena, and isedd finally in the same place lol

Lightning flashes, reflected on dozens of spears and battered shields. Isena sighs and makes herself more comfortable on the rock. Isedd is down below with Horn’s friend. They seem to be getting along quite well. Isena has yet to do more than introduce herself to Esterín- it had taken all of five minutes for her and Isedd to find common ground in obscure storm-lore, and less than a minute after that Isena lost the thread of conversation entirely. Another flash nearly blinds her and she shakes her head. Of all the times to be learning a new trick, she isn’t sure the eve of battle is the best choice, but Isedd always has had a different view of such things than her. The sky is dark, well beyond that which is normal for an overcast day or gathering dusk. 

Another flash illuminates the heraldry of a dozen different Ridings. The Grey Wood is dark around them, and quieter than Isena would have expected for the size of the force gathered here. Not all are at ease under the trees, and others she is sure are quiet for contemplation of what lies before them. If the messengers are to be believed, they will cut through the forest on forgotten roads and come to the besieged city by dawn. Isena shakes her head and jumps down from her rock.

“Isedd!” Her brother looks up from his journal, where he is sketching something to show to Esterín. “We should get ready to ride.”

“Is it time already?” He sounds downright disappointed to have to cut his discussion short and Isena almost laughs. Almost. “Alright then. We will have to pick this up again after tomorrow.” _If we all live that long_ hangs unsaid. Esterín nods, something heavy in the set of her shoulders. She came from the city, Isena remembers. She knows what they are riding into tomorrow better than any of them.

“After tomorrow then. Ride swiftly.”

They leave her in the open space where she and Isedd had been playing at lightning, and when Isena looks back she is running her hand over a carved wooden star that had been hanging at her side.

**Author's Note:**

> tis the end of october! was fun, and if u ever need some good prompts @oc-growth-and-development is great!
> 
> (and if u wanna talk to me abt lotro or smth I'm aurore-parle-de-ses-idees over on tumblr and Always Ready To Talk lol)


End file.
